


I Will Help You Swim

by That_stupid_girl



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Scars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-03 22:10:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4116601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_stupid_girl/pseuds/That_stupid_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>we’re both ‘team leaders’ at a summer camp for little people and you may be hot but goddammit my collection of twelve-year-olds are going to beat yours into the dust</p><p>or</p><p>Beth definitely didn't believe her parents when they said this would be relaxing, but maybe relaxing wasn't what she needed anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I’d Blow Holes in My Soul Just So You Can Look Past It

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so this sucks, but maybe it only sucks a lot and not completely.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Chapter title from Harper Lee by Little Green Cars)

If Beth was being honest with herself, which she honestly never was, her parents were right. This would be good for her. She was sure that at first glance ‘camp counselor’ wouldn’t be the first thing to come to people’s minds. But then again, she was sure that at first glance ‘suicidal freak’ wouldn’t be the first thing to come to people’s minds, so maybe this would work out, too. She didn’t think this summer would be fun or relaxing, but at least she doesn’t know anyone that will be there and maybe she could pretend she didn’t hate herself so damn much. 

“Elizabeth?” At the sound of her mother’s voice, Beth jerked her head back from its resting position against the side of her dresser. She scrambled to uncross her legs and had just shot up off the floor when her mother knocked on the door, preceding to enter immediately. 

“Elizabeth!” Her mother was obviously not happy with the haphazard state of disarray that was her room. 

“Beth,” her mother’s voice softens, and Beth can tell that she’s trying to make her (mildly amused) tone sound more annoyed. “We were supposed to leave ten minutes ago.” 

“Give me three minutes? I’m almost done packing. I swear.” But as she glances around at the piles of clothes on her bed and on her floor and in her dresser drawers (and not in her suitcase), even she doesn’t believe herself. Her mother sighs and slowly leaves her room. Beth knows that she wishes she had never seen the mess in the first place, because if there’s one thing her mother likes, it’s clean; clean house, clean clothes, clean cut, clean slate, clean wrists. And if there’s one thing Beth’s bad at maintaining, it’s clean. 

“Three minutes! I swear!” Beth can almost hear her mother roll her eyes from downstairs. 

She really was almost done, though. She had sorted her clothes into three piles; going, staying, dirty. The dirty clothes pile was admittedly the largest. After managing to close both her suitcases, she double checks her room, throws the numerous things that she forgot into another bag, and heads downstairs, dragging her bags behind her. She gets to the bottom of the stairs just in time to see her mother wince at the sound of her bags clomping along behind her. 

“See? Three minutes.” Her mother sighs, and they both follow Beth’s father out the door. Beth throws her things into the trunk the way she’s learned from years of watching her father pack for business trips and the way her mother hates, then positions herself in the backseat of their car. Her mother gets behind the wheel and Beth notices her staring through the rearview mirror before she starts the car. 

Okay, so it’s stupid for her to be jealous of her mother, but Beth really wants to drive. She’s not allowed to drive right now, but they said that if everything goes well at summer camp, she can maybe get her car back before school starts, and if that isn’t the biggest motivation she has to actually try, then she doesn’t know what is. Driving is her fourth best way to calm down, and admittedly the least destructive by far. And it’s stupid for her to be jealous of her mother, but she’s nervous about embarrassing herself this summer, and she knows that’s exactly what her mother is nervous will happen. 

They stop at a coffee shop before they leave town and Beth orders an iced chai latte like always. She also gets a muffin, before either of her parents even has to ask if she's hungry. She's not, but she can pretend. She's gotten pretty good at pretending. When they get back in the car, her mother turns on the radio. Beth secures her headphones over her ears, but doesn't play any music. She listens as her father turns down the radio and her parents talk about her in voices far from hushed and she can't help but think that they still trust her far too much. She turns on her music after a few more minutes. 

She knows that they love her, but she knows it would be easier for them if they could ignore her. It will be easier for them with her out of the house. She’s okay with that. She loves her parents, it just seems like sometimes she’s all they can see. And she knows they want to see more. But when it all comes down, she’d do anything for parents; like leave them for a summer without them even having to beg. She’s put them through enough.


	2. Things People Will Do For the Ones That They Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Chapter title from Coeur D'Alene by The Head and the Heart)

It takes just over three hours to get to the camp, and the second they pull up, Beth knows they’re even earlier than they were supposed to be. There is no one in sight. Her mother gets out of the car first, smoothing down the nonexistent wrinkles in her pencil skirt, and clears her throat as if there’s anyone there who’s attention she could catch.

Her father opens his door a second later, steps out of the car, and opens Beth’s door. Beth steps out, blinking against the change in lighting from their tinted car. Her father claps a hand on her shoulder and she wants to congratulate herself for not wincing. By the time she’s taken her headphones off her ears and adjusted and smoothed out her (actually wrinkled) clothing, her mother is half way up the hill trying to find someone to snap at.

Just before her mother reaches the crest of the hill, a lady looking to be in her mid fifties comes running up the other side. When she sees Beth and her parents, she checks what is presumedly a watch on her wrist, and, after realizing that they are, in fact, shockingly early, adjusts her face into a warm smile and continues to meet Beth’s mother. Beth can see them shake hands, and sighs as she knows her mother is explaining her need for something far past the realms of punctuality.

It’s about three minutes (the amount of time it takes Beth to pack a suitcase) before the women start walking towards Beth and her Father. She almost laughs when she notices how the other woman is nearly trotting to keep up with her mother. As the two women get closer, Beth can see the woman giving her a once over, and she subconsciously pulls on the hem of her long sleeved gray v-neck. The woman seems satisfied enough, though. As soon as she’s close enough she pulls Beth into a hug. Beth’s body stutters, and she eventually wraps her arms around the woman just before she pulls away.

“I’m Steph.” She pushes some of her long salt and pepper hair out of her face. Beth holds out her arm for a handshake.

“Beth.” The woman accepts, looking a little amused at the formalities, but Beth’s parents raised her well and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t introduce herself what she has been taught is properly.

“Well you’re a little bit early, but that’s okay. It just means you’ll have extra time to settle in before the campers show up!” She winks at Beth, and honestly Beth can’t decide if she’s going to love or hate this woman.

“If you want to go ahead and say goodbye to your parents, I can show you to your cabin. Or you all can come and see where your daughter will be staying.” Beth glances at her mother, and more importantly her mother’s shoes, and knows that it’s been unanimously decided that they’ll say goodbye here. She turns into her father and he wraps his arms around her.

“I love you, Dad.” He squeezes her more tightly.

“I love you, too, Liz.” She barely has time to cringe at the nickname before he continues on about how they both love her and want her to have fun. She nods a few times and he releases her so she can go hug her mother.

Her mother hugs her more softly, and she can’t remember if it’s always felt this way or her mother is just worried she might break her.

“I love you, Elizabeth. You know your father and I just want you to be okay.” She rubs her back gently, and Beth smiles a bit.

“I know. I love you, too. Have a good summer.” She pulls back from her mother and grabs the bags that her father took out of the back for her. Steph gives her a look as if she’s asking if she’s ready, and Beth looks back at her parents once more before following Steph over the hill and to what is apparently supposed to be her new home.

The cabin is almost exactly what she expected. They walk into the main room, and it’s bigger than Beth had anticipated, but smaller than she remembers from the three summers she’d spent at camps like this one. They walk past the row of four bunks and the dressers opposite them and past what Steph tells her is the main bathroom and through the door at the opposite end of the room. It’s a small room; just more than enough space for the twin sized bed, desk, and dresser. Steph tells her that the door opposite her bed is her own bathroom, and that she needs to be back at the parking lot at 2:30. Just before the cabin door closes behind her she hears Steph shout that it’s an hour and a half, in case she didn’t know.

Her bed is pushed into the corner, and about two feet above the bed and two feet from the head, there’s a window. It’s sort of built into the wall so while there’s technically a windowsill, nothing sticks out. She likes that. It keeps the wall straight. She likes things straight, like the lines on her body are, like she isn’t.

She searches the walls for outlets and finds one blocked by her bed on the wall with window and another between her bed and the desk right beside it. She puts both of her suitcases on her bed so that the ends touch each other and she can flip back the tops and starts taking out the things that she brought to make her hate the room less.

She’s got a case of thumbtacks and a roll of masking tape, and she moves the furniture around so she can secure the fairy lights around the perimeter of the ceiling. She reaches between the bed and the wall to plug them in and almost smiles when they light up. She plugs her laptop charger into the outlet beside the desk and places her laptop on the edge of the desk so she can reach it as she puts her bedding on.

After the laptop starts up, she opens Spotify and scrolls through her playlist of indie alternative music that makes her feel. She moves her suitcases to under her bed and starts fitting her (brand new) stone gray sheets onto the twin bed, singing along to Twin Size Mattress by The Front Bottoms that she chose for the title. She makes her bed, complete with all four of her pillows and her mostly purple galaxy print duvet she uses almost exclusively for traveling.

She leaves the music playing (Lorde, now), and moves into the bathroom to stare at herself in the mirror above the counter. She sort of wishes she hadn’t gotten here so early; she doesn’t know if what she’s wearing looks okay. She’s got on a long sleeve gray v-neck and her favorite shorts (black denim with four matte buttons that hit about an inch below her bellybutton and again at about the tips of her thumbs). She’s got on her worn but not old black Chuck Taylors and her hair is up in a messy bun. She’s wearing a little makeup, but about as much as usual, and it worries her that she doesn’t think she looks bad.

She stares at herself for a good ten minutes before peeing and moving to sit on the newly made bed. It’s weird here. It’s not like home. She guesses that now home’s weird too, though.


	3. Hiding That I'm Terrified

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Chapter title from Still Sane by Lorde)

She’s standing in the dusty parking lot slightly separated from the other nine counselors, two girls from the kitchen, Steph, and two other older women. She’s pretty sure she’s the only new counselor this year. It’s not like there’s many of them anyway, though. She’s pretty sure she looks just as terrified as she’s trying not to, but so far none of the other counselors seem to have noticed her. She can’t tell if she thinks that’s good or not.

The kids are supposed to start arriving in ten or so minutes, and she can’t tell if that makes her more nervous than the fact that one of the other counselors seems to be walking over to her. She fidgets with her watch and the few bracelets on her wrists, trying to look like she has something to be doing, which is honestly a bit hard in the middle of a dirt parking lot.

The girl reaches Beth and honestly, if she wasn’t feeling insecure before, she sure as hell is now. The girl in front of her is a good three inches taller than Beth with shoulder length golden curls and an amazing body. She’s wearing cool looking navy shorts with blue and white patterns and she’s got a white button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up tucked into that. Her brown oxford shoes match her thin belt and Beth feels like she might throw up from jealously. Or anxiety. Probably anxiety.

“I’m Delphine.” She’s got a french accent, which really doesn’t make Beth feel any better. Beth loves accents, and her voice is sort of annoying.

“Beth.” She sticks out her hand and pretends to make eye contact by staring at the other girl’s nose. She doesn’t like being looked at, and suddenly she’s really not sure why this seemed like a good job for her. She’s not sure why her parents thought this would be a good idea.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Beth. Are you excited for the summer?” She seems half actually interested and half interested in making Beth feel like she’s wanted here, and Beth appreciates that more than anything.

“Uh yeah, I guess. Sorry. I mean yeah. I am.” Delphine nods and smiles like Beth doesn’t sound like a complete loser. She can see in her peripheral vision that the other counselors are looking at the two of them, and figures that they probably chose Delphine to go talk to the awkward new girl.

“So uh, did all of you work here last summer?” she asks after just over a moment of silence. She’s pretty sure Delphine knows exactly what she means by this question.

“Yes. All of us worked here last year, as well as a girl named Maya. She was not very nice. They would not have let her come back even if she had wanted to. Last year was my first year, as well as Alison’s, Aynsley’s, Cosima’s, and Helena’s, but Rachel, Emma, Sarah, and Diana worked here the year before that, too.” Delphine doesn’t elaborate on the other names, and Beth can’t help but wonder if she only listed them so that Beth would have something to go off of. If she did, it was greatly appreciated.

“Oh. That’s cool. Last summer I, uh…” tried to kill myself for the second time without my parents noticing. “I didn’t do anything as exciting.” She looks down at her shoes and crosses her arms over her chest. She forgot how bad she was at talking to teenagers.

“You have half of the twelve year olds?” Delphine asks. Beth is grateful for the change in topic, but knows that Delphine likely realized that was not the direction she had meant to steer the conversation and is now trying to help.

“Uh yeah. Yeah. I guess. I mean, I really just hope I’ll do okay. Like they won’t hate me or anything, you know? I mean, I’m not a very likable person so…” Beth lets out a ~~fake~~ light laugh to show that she knows she probably shouldn’t have said that, but Delphine’s eyebrows furrow nonetheless.

“So far you seem plenty likable to me.” She almost looks like she knows this won’t be something Beth knows how to respond to.

“Oh. Um. I’m really not, but thanks.” Beth really hates compliments because she feels bad accepting them and she feels bad not accepting them. Delphine looks like she’s about to say something else, but then a car comes speeding down the drive, and another follows close behind.

The next hour is unbelievable commotion and organized chaos, which is something Beth really hadn’t thought could logically exist until now. When she gets back to her cabin with the last of the eight girls who she’ll be in charge of, she lets the girl enter the cabin first. She stays outside for another four seconds to take a deep breath before entering. No one seems to have even started unpacking. No one has even chosen bunks. They’re talking to each other in a way that looks like they know Beth has the power to do anything she wants; they're all looking at her as if she holds their fate. She makes a split second decision that they’re waiting for her to tell her what to do.

“Okay. Who for sure wants a top bunk?” Four girls’ hands immediately shoot up, while two other girls fiddle with their fingers in a way that Beth knows means that they’re supposed to want a top bunk but can hopefully fake just not getting their hands up in time and sleep on the bottom.

“Okay! That’s great.” Beth honestly has no clue what to do right now. At all.

“Um. Who has not been to this camp before?” Three of the girls raise their hands. Beth really wishes she knew where she was going with this.

“Okay. Are any of you, like out of all of you, friends?” Four of the girls raise their hands. Two of the girls wanted a top bunk, and two wanted a bottom. Awesome.

“Awesome. Okay. Do you guys want to like bunk together? Like two of you and two of you?” Could she sound any stupider right now?

“Okay you guys can go pick your bunks and I’ll just assign bunk mates for you four or…” she trails off, leaving the question hanging without another option. The two sets of girls that had already chosen beds had taken the two in the middle. She assigns a small girl with curly dirty blonde hair named Shelby to the top bunk closest to the door and Cassie, a girl with shoulder length straight light brown hair and boobs possibly bigger than Beth’s, to the bunk below her.

She knows that she shouldn’t pick favorites and that she can’t judge people by how they look and so on and so forth, but Beth thinks that she will definitely like the last two girls. They’ll be getting the beds closest to her room, and Beth honestly doesn’t know if she did that on purpose or not. The girl who’ll be sleeping on top is very thin with dark hair that she has braided half way down her back and freckles across her whole face. Her name is Rachel. And Zoe, who’ll be on the bottom, is adorable with light brown hair and big black glasses and almost chubby cheeks.

Beth looks around at these eight girls and wonders if she ever looked like this. They look so excited and they talk to each other so easily. She really hopes not a single one of them ever feels the way that she has become used to feeling.

They’re just supposed to hang out in their cabin for the two and half hours until dinner. Beth takes this time to meet the four girls whose names she wasn’t sure on (Emily, who's tiny with short brown hair, Mia, who's tall with wavy reddish brown hair, Sophie, whose hair is so blonde it’s almost blinding, and Sage, whose hair is even darker than her skin, which is incredibly smooth looking in a way Beth has only seen in magazines, even though the girl is only twelve. Beth’s skin is dry ~~and scarred~~ and sucks.)

It takes the girls about thirty minutes to unpack, and for the next two hours, Beth leads them in games that she barely remembers how to play. But the girls are sweet, and that’s really all she can ask for. They scare her, though, in a way that kids her age don’t have the power to. They’re so young and they seem happy, or at least okay, and it scares her that they might not be someday. It scares her that she might have been like that once, because she’s scared she can never be like that again.

Dinner’s at six o’clock on the dot, which apparently means sometime between fifteen minutes before and fifteen minutes after. This is weird for Beth, who is so used to blatant punctuality that it’s probably unhealthy. She sits with her kids at dinner. Some of the other counselors sit so that they can talk to each other from their respective tables, and some of them even get up to go have a conversation, but Beth just listens to her kids and pretends to eat more of her food than she actually does.

She sits with her kids at the bonfire after dinner, too. At this point, most of the counselors aren’t even sitting, but this way, maybe it will just look like she’s trying to be a good counselor and not like she feels foreign. She can see Delphine talking to another girl out of the corner of her eye. She thinks they might be talking about her, and she slides her gaze back to the marshmallow that she’s roasting (that she will undoubtedly give away).

All of the girls have to be in their cabins by nine, and it’s lights out thirty minutes later. She says goodnight to all of them, and at 9:35, closes the door between the two rooms. She doesn’t take off her shoes before she climbs onto her bed and wraps herself up in the duvet that she so carefully positioned earlier.

She honestly doesn’t know why she’s crying, which really makes it worse. She can cry over her friends all hanging out without her four times in one week and it hurts, but she knows why she’s upset. She can cry over throwing up the first thing she eats in three days and it hurts and it’s pathetic, but she knows why she’s upset. Nothing happened today, really. It went okay. She really hopes that the other counselors don’t decide that they hate her, though. She really hopes they don’t think she looks stupid.

She’s shaking a little, but only because she’s crying and can’t quite breathe right. She scratches her fingernails along her forearms and her left hand in a way that she knows she shouldn’t do, but that she also can’t really help, and tries to stop crying. It doesn’t work.

There’s a knock on her window that startles her, and she can see a figure on the other side of the glass. After another tap and a few seconds of focusing, she realizes that it’s Delphine. Beth quickly wipes her eyes and tries not to look too pitiful before opening the window with what she hopes is a casual questioning expression. When she opens the window, she can see another girl behind Delphine. But before she really has a chance to try to figure out who, Delphine is talking.

“Hi! Most nights after the campers…” Delphine trails off, eyes fixing themselves for the first time on Beth’s face. “Have you been crying?” she asks, softly, and like she’ll accept whatever answer Beth gives. Beth shakes her head as her lips tremble, and she quickly wipes the tears that haven't stopped falling from under her eyes, because honestly, there is no way she’s actually going to cry right now. She puts on what she knows is an incredibly watery smile, allows Delphine to finish her original explanation, and climbs out her window.

Delphine gives her a tight hug, and does not ask what she was crying about.


	4. And This is How it Starts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Chapter title from Sex by the 1975)

The girl behind Delphine had been Cosima, who had on denim shorts, a black bikini top, and combat boots. She had her hair pulled up and Beth couldn’t tell if she had dreads or just braids, and Beth didn’t really care because she was wearing a bikini top which usually means swimming. Beth is not going to swim tonight. 

But she follows the two girls anyway, and they end up on a small beach at a part of the lake that doesn’t even look good for swimming. It seems like all of the other counselors are already there when they walk up, sitting on the sand in an almost circle. Delphine and Cosima sit down together (simultaneously and leaving little space between them), and Delphine motions to the ground beside her. Beth sits about a foot away. 

There’s talking at first, and a few girls sort of talk to Beth and then sort of give up when she gives mostly non committal answers. After about thirty minutes, a truck pulls up and two boys climb out of the back as both of the doors open. There’s four of them, all together, and apparently they drove over from a camp that’s almost exactly like this one, down to the number of kids and everything. They brought beer. 

Beth drinks one beer, which is one less than Delphine and apparently she’s usually the most sober, but Beth knows she really shouldn’t drink much. Not that that’s ever stopped her before, but she knows that she really shouldn’t drink much. So she doesn’t. 

She still doesn’t know everyone’s names (or anyone’s, really), but she doesn’t think that really matters right now because it’s dark and it doesn’t seem like anyone can really tell which person is which anyway. 

A few minutes before midnight, three girls she can barely even see and Delphine say that they’re going to go to bed. They start to head back towards the cabins, and Beth jumps up to join them, mumbling something about being tired even though no one is listening. She walks a few feet behind the other girls and isn’t sure if they even know she’s there. She climbs back through her window almost silently. 

After stripping out of her shorts, she takes her shirt off and stands in front of the mirror in her gray-blue underwear. A few minutes of staring in the mirror, and she opens the toiletries bag she had placed on the counter earlier. She removes her makeup, cleans her face, and brushes her teeth, then takes off her bra and puts her gray shirt from earlier back on. 

She wakes up seven hours later to the alarm on her phone. She surges to turn it off before it wakes up anyone in the other room; she wanted to be dressed and ready before she saw any of them. 

She puts on the same shorts she wore yesterday with an olive green henley that used to belong to her friend, Art. She puts on her makeup and runs her fingers through her hair before shoving her feet into her shoes 

It’s almost exactly eight o’clock when she enters the other room to wake up the girls. All but two of them are still asleep, and she’s not really sure what she planned to do, because how is she supposed to know how to wake up twelve year olds? She just walks through the bunks, hitting the posts on the sides and hoping to jolt the girls in the beds awake. They all wake up and get ready without a hitch, though Beth is somehow roped into braiding five of the girls’ hair. Five. 

Clad out primarily in bermuda or athletic shorts and training bras hidden under striped or sparkly shirts, they walk as a group to the cafeteria, or mess hall as Beth learned she was expected to call it. Beth thought that that name was sort of stupid, though. Honestly, were they trying to promote bad hygiene? 

She sits with her cabin of girls again, sipping on coffee that she is more grateful for than she is for anything else right now. She likes drinking black coffee, but she also likes staying conscious, and ever since she passed out three months ago (for the fourth time), she’s decided that she at least needs to drink milk in her coffee. 

She is sort of ready for the day. Okay, so she’s like not at all ready for the day. But they’re playing capture the flag today, and she is definitely ready to win, because if there’s one thing Beth hates more than herself, it’s losing. Sure, Beth is a loser, but that doesn’t mean she actually has to lose at things.

There’s a short meeting after breakfast. And it’s really not so much a meeting as Steph and two other ladies making announcements about the activities of the day. Lunch is at 11:30, and at 12:30 they have an hour of free time where they are supposed to stay in their cabins. Beth is pretty sure Steph says ‘supposed to’ because the rule is not stressed and constantly broken, but she’s not sure. At 9:25 Steph tells them all the clear their tables and head out to their morning activities, which are supposed to start at 9:30. Beth knows that if they really wanted them to start at 9:30, they should have let them out earlier, and this bugs her a bit because she’s been raised on obsessive scheduling, but she doesn’t say anything.

She takes her group of preteens out to the field where they’re supposed to meet the other 12 year olds for capture the flag. They get to the field, and the other girls are already there, along with their counselor.

As soon as Beth gets close enough for it to be acceptable, the other girl jogs up to introduce herself to Beth. She says her name is Alison and Beth knows that she heard her talking last night, but it must have been too dark for her to see her, because she knows that she would remember someone like this. 

Beth thinks Alison is really pretty, which is sort of weird, because Alison looks to be pretty close to the opposite of Beth, but not in a bad way. She’s wearing a shortsleeve pink polo shirt, cropped black leggings, and teal running shoes and Beth thinks that that’s probably not something that should look good, but it really does. She’s got on a headband that seems to be the exact same shade as her shirt and her bangs are perfectly straight. She looks like she has the potential to be incredibly annoying. She also looks incredibly good and like she has the potential to ruin Beth’s life.

After Beth and Alison have a brief conversation about boundaries and rules and such, the two groups of girls each take their respective flag (bandana), and set off to opposite sides of the woods that surround the field. As they walk, Beth explains the boundaries, and then acts as a sort of liaison between the girls to help eliminate yelling and arguing while talking strategy. 

Eventually they decide to play defensive. Or mostly defensive. They decide to send who they deem to be the two smallest and fastest girls (Shelby and Sage) around the perimeter so that they can try to attack from behind. Sage will go around the left and Shelby will go around the right, and when they get to (if they get to) what they think is the middle, they’ll count to three hundred. If the other girl hasn’t reached them by then, they’ll take another fifty steps, count to three hundred again, and then repeat. If by that time they still haven’t met up, they’re to turn and try to find the other team’s base alone. Beth thinks it’s a good plan. 

Alison is apparently just as competitive as Beth. She almost seems more competitive, but Beth thinks that may not be possible and definitely isn’t likely. Three of Alison’s girls run at them almost immediately, and four girls on Beth’s team chase after them. Beth thinks it’s a good plan when she sees three more girls running at them from the other side, hoping that Beth’s team will be distracted with the other girls. It almost works, because while they catch the first three girls, they only catch one of the second three. Rachel chases another girl back to the other side, and Emily chases a small girl with light brown hair until the girl trips and falls, skinning her knee. Emily runs back to get Beth, and she grabs the first aid kit that she’s supposed to always carry with her (that she had put by their flag).

She jogs after Emily until they get to the other girl. Her knee is bleeding and she’s obviously trying not to cry. Beth pretends not to notice. She looks back up to see Emily hovering near them, looking nervous and slightly guilty. Beth tells her that the girl will be okay, and they she should go back to their base. Emily hesitates for a good twenty seconds, but eventually seems to believe Beth and takes off back towards their flag.

“Hey, I’m Beth. What’s your name?” Beth kneels down next to her and opens the first aid kit. The girl looks up from her knee.

“I’m Lucy.” Beth nods as she takes out bandages and neosporin from the first aid kit. Beth’s good at bandaging cuts (probably better than she should be), but she’s not so sure about this. Beth does what she thinks is an okay job. The girl seems to feel a little bit better, at least. Beth gives her one of the fun size Hershey bars that she had put into the first aid kit herself, and stands up, offering her hand out to the girl.

“Do you know where Alison is?” Lucy hesitates for a moment, seeming to try to figure out if this is some sort of trick to get her to tell Beth where their captain and flag are, but answers after a few seconds.

“I think so.” Beth nods.

“You should go back to her and tell her she hurt your knee. I’m not sure I did the best job fixing it up, and she might know better.” The girl looks sort of skeptical. “No one on my team will follow you or get you out or anything,” Beth adds after a moment. Lucy nods.

“Thanks.” She starts to run off, and seems to realize that her knee hurts. She starts to slow down, but then looks back and sees Beth watching her, and keeps her pace. Beth quickly turns around and starts jogging back to her team. She looks back a few seconds later to see Lucy walking back towards the other side. 

Beth’s team won. Barely. Even though their goal had been to keep most of their team on their own side, Alison’s team had somehow managed to lure five of them across the border, and gotten three of them, plus Shelby, out. They had gotten five of Alison’s girls, though, and Sage had come through in the end. Alison seemed sort of pissed (but not at her girls) and sort of impressed, and Beth is pretty sure she might actually like Alison soon. Which is probably going to suck. 

Alison shook her hand and told her that she and her team had done a good job. The two groups of girls walk slowly back to the cafeteria (she’s just not going to call it a mess hall) for lunch. Beth crosses her arms over her chest and walks a little behind the girls. After a couple of minutes, Alison falls back and joins her. She doesn’t say anything, though, which Beth is grateful for. She feels like she’s even worse than she is at conversations, and that only makes what conversation skills she does have worse.


	5. I Should Not Care But I Don't Know How

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Chapter title from Organs by Of Monsters and Men)

There’s chicken sandwiches and mac and cheese and salad and watermelon and chips and assorted drinks for lunch. Beth eats a piece of watermelon, a few lettuce leaves, and half of a chicken patty, which is definitely enough food. She eats less than any of the twelve year olds at her table. This afternoon they’re supposed to play soccer, which seriously excites Beth. She played soccer for nine years, and then she started hurting herself and played for two more years before her wrists started getting messed up, too. She really likes soccer. 

The girls talk and play games and read and such during the hour after lunch. Beth looks out the front windows and sees some girls and some counselors leaving their cabins and realizes that she was right in thinking this was an incredibly loose rule. She goes into her room, though, and rereads one of her favorite books, because it’s good and funny and easy to read. 

Apparently Alison has also played soccer before. Beth almost feels bad that the games were more Beth vs Alison than Beth’s team vs Alison’s team. She almost feels bad, but she doesn’t. She loves soccer and she hasn’t played even a pickup game in at least a year and a half. Alison and her team beat them by one point in two games and by two points in another game, and since Beth’s team beat the other team by one point once and two points once, Alison’s team wins. Beth is too elated from the thrill of the game to actually be upset, but not too much to pretend to be upset. So she does. She’s sees Alison notice her (fake) defeated and deflated face, and she not only tones down her celebrating, but gets her team too, as well. Beth can’t really tell how this makes her feel. 

Between 2:30 and 3:00, the girls are allowed to stop by the cafeteria for a snack, and then they can do whatever from then until 4:45. Most of Beth’s girls stay in the cabin, but two of them head over to Alison’s cabin to hang out with some of the girls that they apparently became friends with today. 

Beth goes back into her room and lies down on her bed. It’s not really that she’s tired, it’s just that there’s a lot of noise here. It’s not bad noise, but for the past few months, everyone has been tiptoeing around her and it’s a very abrupt change. Plus she’s still not really sure how she qualified to be a counselor here. She tried to kill herself just a few months ago and while she’s pretty stable now, she still doesn’t get how she’s allowed to be responsible for kids. Honestly, she was probably either the only or one of the only people who applied for this job. 

She doesn’t know how long she’s been there when she hears a knock on her window. She looks up to see Delphine. She almost smiles. It really amazes her that no one seems to hate her yet. She pushes up on the window frame and slides it open. 

“Hey! Do you want to come for a walk with Cosima and me?” Delphine’s accent makes her sound more proper and sophisticated than she probably is, but Beth sort of likes it. Beth hesitates a moment, looking around her room. Her laptop is closed on her desk and her phone is beside it. She hasn’t touched either of them since last night. She nods her head and climbs out the window. Delphine smiles at her.

Beth really doesn’t get how Delphine manages to look so sleek at a (mostly outdoors) summer camp. She’s wearing off white sailor shorts with black stripes, a loose black tank top, and her same brown oxford shoes, and she somehow looks completely comfortable and ready for anything. It amazes Beth, who can rarely find two matching socks, even though she only owns about ten pairs. 

Cosima smiles at her, and Beth smiles back. She’s pretty sure that she’s never spoken to Cosima, and that it’s probably her fault. She’s pretty sure Cosima is really talkative. It makes Beth a little more comfortable that Cosima is dressed more like her in the same dark blue denim shorts she wore last night, her combat boots, and a black t shirt with a fake ‘WANTED’ poster on it. The poster has a picture of a cat and has the word ‘wanted’ printed over the picture in all caps. Below the picture it reads ‘DEAD & ALIVE,’ and then below that ‘SCHRODINGER’S CAT.’ Beth gets the joke, and thinks it’s funny. Sort of nerdy, but definitely funny. 

“I like your shirt.” The words come out much more softly than she meant for them to, and she’s relatively certain they’re going to think she sounds stupid. But Cosima’s face just splits into a huge grin and Delphine chuckles.

“Thank you! You’re the first person that’s gotten it all day! Besides Delphine, I mean. A few people asked me to explain the joke, but once I started explaining the paradox, most of them sort of stopped listening. Only Alison and Rebecca, one of Emma’s campers, actually let me finish and seemed to understand what I was saying. Emma is one of the counselors for the fourteen year olds.” She adds the last part as an after thought, and Beth is grateful that she didn’t have to ask who Emma was. Beth nods at Cosima’s words, knowing that there’s probably something she could say that would make her seem clever and would help the conversation along, but she can’t think of anything. 

Delphine breaks the silence after the moment of awkwardness by asking if they’re ready to walk. They head off down one of the trails that leads into the woods that seem to be everywhere; Cosima tells her that this trail is short. 

Both Delphine and Cosima attempt to make conversation with her, and she really is trying to talk to them, but she’s so worried about them liking her that she ends up sounding much more socially inept than she normally would. After a while they stick to more simple questions, and the three of them are able to carry out a conversation with minimal awkwardness. To be fair, Delphine and Cosima do most of the talking. 

“What’s your favorite subject in school?” Delphine is sticking to painfully generic questions, and Beth honestly sort of appreciates that. 

“History, but I also like English. And physics. Not so much chem or bio, but I like physics.” She shuts up after that, worried that she gave them more information than they really wanted. 

“Oh cool! Delphine and I are both really into science. I’m personally really into evolution and genetics, but everything really is super cool. I don’t like history much, but I think that’s mostly cause I didn’t like any of my history teachers.” They walk in silence for a moment after Cosima finishes talking until Delphine speaks up again.

“Have you met all of the counselors?” For some reason it sort of embarrasses Beth that she hasn’t. 

“Really just you guys and Alison. Helena introduced herself during lunch, though.” 

“So you like really don’t know anything about any of them?” Beth sort of shakes her head and sort of shrugs at Cosima’s question. That’s all it takes for Cosima to start telling her about all of them. It’s half generic information like name and the age of their campers and half what, and apparently more importantly who, they like to do. 

“Okay so I’ll just start with the counselors for the ten year olds, I guess.” Cosima seems overly excited to get to tell Beth about everyone. But from what Beth has seen, she always seems sort of overly excited. 

“So there’s me. But you’ve already met me and stuff and I’m the one talking so. And then there’s Helena who you’ve apparently also already met. She’s got this super wild blonde hair and she’s super pale and I don’t know why I’m telling you what she looks like since you already know who she is. Anyway. She’s sort of weird and she can eat like so much, but she’s really super sweet and she’s great with kids. She’s super protective of her older sister, Sarah. Do you know who Sarah is?” Beth shakes her head. Cosima nods, but seems to ignore the fact. 

“Okay so then with the eleven year olds there’s Aynsley, who’s Alison’s best friend. She’s got blonde hair and she usually styles it, even if she just wears a t shirt and gym shorts. She seems sort of like super suburban and like preppy girly or whatever, but she’s actually really nice once you get to know her. Not that I really know her that well. And then there’s Delphine. She’s sort of a total loser and no one likes her at all, but she’s like totally in love with me.” Delphine laughs from beside her, and shoves Cosima lightly. 

“Just kidding. Delphine is super great. She’s so smart and gorgeous and really really nice. All her campers love her.” Beth sees Delphine smile, and Cosima stops in her tracks to peck Delphine on the lips. Beth’s eyes may widen a little bit, but only because she doesn’t know how she didn’t realize they were together before now. It’s really obvious now that she thinks about it. It makes her feel better, and she doesn’t really know why. (It definitely has nothing to do with the fact that maybe the people here won’t be as weirded out as most of her old friends were when she told them she was definitely not straight.) It’s probably just because they’re cute.

Delphine seems to be watching her reaction more closely than Cosima, and it makes her nervous to have someone’s eyes on her. She quickly lowers her head and Cosima starts talking again. 

“So then the twelve years are obviously you and Alison so I’ll just skip that. Then for the thirteens there’s Sarah. She’s Helena’s sister. She looks sorta punk rockish. She wears a lot of eyeliner and usually a beanie and she’s got brown hair. She sometimes sort of braids one side of it and it looks really cool. She’s nice though. Really brash, but nice. She’s maybe even more protective of Helena than Helena is of her. It’s pretty cute really. And so there’s this guy named Cal that works at the other camp. He was here last night. He’s got a beard and he’s like sort of rugged hot. He’s really nice. Sarah slept with him a lot last summer and I think still is, but it’s definitely not romantic like at all. She’s also totally fucking Rachel Duncan, who’s the other counselor for the thirteen year olds, but neither of them will admit it to anyone. It’s really obvious, though. I’m pretty sure Rachel is totally like actually into Sarah, too. I don’t know about Sarah though. Rachel’s got short blonde hair and usually wears red lipstick and is seriously brutal. She’s nice, just pretty uptight.” Cosima seems to be running out of breath and she stops talking for a minute; Beth presumes she’s just taking a second to breathe. 

“Okay so then for the fourteens there’s Emma and Diana. Emma has red hair and really bright green eyes and definitely seriously likes Cal. I’m pretty sure he likes her too, but I don’t know if that means he won’t sleep with Sarah. Emma is seriously like the nicest person ever, though. You’ve probably seen Diana. She’s the only one of us that’s black, plus she’s really tall. She’s a really good swimmer. Great arms. She’s sort of with this guy named Chris from the guy’s camp, but no one quite knows what’s up with them so. But anyway, that’s about everyone. Now you’re basically caught up. You’re the only new counselor this year, so it’s really only fair that you get the full explanation.” 

While Beth really doesn’t agree that she deserves to know the personal details about everyone’s lives, she seriously appreciates Cosima trying to help her fit in more. Or she thinks that’s what she’s doing at least. After Cosima’s detailed introductions of all the counselors, none of them talk for at least five minutes.

“So why did you decide to be a counselor here?” Beth looks up when Delphine starts to speak, but by the end of the sentence she’s looking back at her shoes. 

“Uh my parents just thought I needed to go somewhere where I would be relaxed and wouldn’t really know anyone.” She feels sort of bad about her answer, even though it is nowhere near a lie. It’s just the most simple and least detailed version of the truth. Delphine nods, and it seems to her that both she and Cosima can sense to drop the subject. It’s quiet for most of the walk back to the cabins. 

It’s been about half an hour since they left. Beth enters the cabin through the front door this time, and none of her campers question how she left. It’s just past 4:00, now, and they have to be in the quad like area outside the cabins at 4:30, ready to swim. Which, you know, Beth totally isn’t, but she puts her black bikini bottoms with criss-cross ties on the sides and the black strappy top on under her clothes anyway. 

All of her campers are back in the cabin by now, and she reminds them that they need to have on their swimsuits. Cassie’s already wearing hers, and Shelby, Sophie, and Sage change into theirs right then, but the other four girls take turns in the bathroom, and Beth tells all of them they need to be quick. 

She walks back into her room and throws her hair up into a messy bun before slipping her aviator sunglasses onto her head. She decides against taking a towel (if she has any say in the matter, she won’t be swimming), and walks back into the main room of the cabin. All of the girls seem ready to go. Five of them are wearing one piece swimsuits, and three are wearing bikinis. All but two of them have shorts on over their swimsuits, and all of them have towels. Beth notices that she is the only one not wearing flip flops or sandals and almost smiles.

They head out as a group and they’re not the last ones on the quad. The only other cabins out there are Alison’s, Delphine’s, and Rachel’s. After a few more minutes, everyone is there (including Steph and the two ladies whose names Beth has yet to learn) and they head out to the part of the lake with the dock as a group.

Beth walks behind almost everyone, and she almost doesn’t mind that no one is talking to her. It’s nice here. 

They get to the lake and most of the eighty girls get in the water, as well as about half the counselors. A few of the thirteen year olds and a good half of the fourteen year olds lay down on their towels on the big rock above the dock. Some of the counselors do the same. 

Beth sits at the top of the steps leading down from the rock to the dock and watches as Alison and who she assumes is Aynsley sit on the edge of the dock with their feet in the water. Some of the campers talk to them from the water, and a few more sit down beside them.

Beth watches Delphine and Cosima in the water, Cosima wearing the same black bikini top as last night and high waisted dark red bikini bottoms and Delphine in a pale blue classic bikini. They both look great and Beth is sort of completely jealous. But that’s okay. She’s used to that. She watches as they play some sort of game on the floating dock in the middle of the lake with the kids and she smiles. She really hopes they don’t end up hating her because she would love to have them as friends. 

There’s a counselor with red hair, Beth remembers that her name is Emma thanks to Cosima’s description, and she walks down to the dock before stripping out of her clothes rather quickly and jumping into the water immediately. She’s wearing a backless green one piece with some sort of cool pattern and she’s really thin. Beth watches the way she doesn’t get out of the water, though, and thinks that maybe she wishes she were even thinner. 

Her eyes drift back to Alison. Beth saw her before she sat down, and knows she’s wearing a ruffled pink bikini top and matching bottoms and Beth wishes she didn’t think she looked quite so good. She watches Alison as she talks to Aynsley and some of the campers, and even though she can only see her back, she can tell when she’s laughing. She laughs with her whole body and Beth really needs to get herself together because she wishes she didn’t think Alison looked quite so good.


	6. I Know That She Knows That I'm Not Fond of Asking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Chapter title from Naive by the Kooks) 
> 
> I know this whole thing sort of sucks, but

They stay at the lake for a little over an hour, and then are sent back to their cabins to change before dinner. Beth keeps her swimsuit on under her clothes, because there really isn’t much of a point of changing. At dinner she eats about half a plate of french fries and one of those popsicles that come in plastic tubes. She’s never known what they’re called, but the blue ones are the best. 

There’s a campfire after dinner, where the girls can roast marshmallows and make s’mores and if Beth had known how cheesily cliche this camp would be, she’s not sure if she would have agreed to come. Some of the counselors tell stories and everyone talks about schedules for tomorrow and Beth is one of the few people there that doesn’t eat any marshmallows, but they’re something that she’s never really liked. The taste isn’t worth the mess. 

It isn’t until after all of her campers are in their bunks (not even pretending to be asleep) that she strips off her shorts and stands in front of the mirror in her bathroom. She curls her fingers around the olive green hem of her shirt and pulls it up over her head. It’s not often that Beth regrets what she’s done to herself, but she doesn’t know what she’s going to do if she ever has to swim as an activity. This is not something she wants her twelve year old campers to see.

She’s lying to herself when she says it’s really not that bad. She’s not lying when she says she’s seen worse, but she’s seen worse of almost everything bad she’s seen. A kid a grade below her had his house catch on fire and his mom and little brother both have burns up half their bodies, but she’s seen pictures of worse fires and worse burns. A few years ago one of the teachers at her school was in a wreck. Somehow pictures of her mangled body and mangled car had gotten online and it’s not something she ever wants to see again, but she’s seen worse. And she knows that that doesn’t mean what happened to the people who had slightly less tragic tragedies wasn’t bad. She knows that pain and suffering can’t be compared to someone else’s pain and suffering and that things like that can’t be measured in the physical damage done, or at all, but it’s just different when she’s talking about herself. (She knows that it’s not, really, but sometimes knowing isn’t the same as knowing.)

The worst ones are high up on her thighs and the inside of her forearms. And yeah, they are pretty bad, but there’s something different about knowing that she controlled exactly how bad they were. Besides the smaller or less important scars that have scattered her arms for years, there’s one at the base of each wrist, one cutting a perpendicular line through the majority of scars from about four inches up her left arm to her wrist, and a few really bad ones two to three inches up her right arm. They’re healed for the most part, but they’re new enough and bad enough that they haven’t blended themselves into her skin and they’re still a bright enough pink to remind Beth of how red her hands were when she swallowed all those pills and how red her mother’s eyes were when Beth woke up two days later in the hospital. Even the stitches couldn’t do much to mask the severity of the cuts. 

She runs her fingers over her stomach, and it’s definitely not that she thinks she’s fat, because she doesn’t, it’s just that she definitely doesn’t think she’s pretty, which isn’t something that would bother her if she didn’t hate herself so much anyway. Her fingertips dance over the hundreds of thin lines across her stomach; the color is so close to that of her skin that they wouldn’t be noticeable if not for the sheer numbers of them. 

It’s not particularly cold in the bathroom, but something about the combination of her bare feet on the tile floor and her cool fingers sliding over her exposed skin makes her shiver. (She pretends it’s not because she misses the blood.) She washes her hands as if there’s still blood on her fingers and can’t help but laugh at how much she feels like Lady Macbeth. 

There’s the sound of someone rapping on the glass windowpane and she turns off the water. The knocking stops and she puts her shirt back on, knowing that her shorts are still in her room and that whoever it is, and it’s most likely Delphine, will not be fixated on the tops of her legs, anyway. 

She can see Delphine’s face on the other side of the window. She picks up her shorts off the floor and trips over to the window as she slides them up her legs. Her left hand pushes up on the wooden frame as she fumbles to button her shorts with one hand. Delphine completely ignores what Beth perceives as intense awkwardness, and Beth would thank her for that if it wouldn’t make it more awkward.

“You coming?” Cosima calls out from behind Delphine before the other girl has time to speak. Beth hesitates half a second before nodding. She plucks her shoes off her floor and climbs out her window, sneakers dangling from her fingers. 

“Put your shoes on and we’ll go.” Beth does what Delphine tells her to, quickly shoving her feet into her shoes and hoping they won’t slip off her feet. She follows the two of them down to the same part of the beach as before, now lit up by a few battery powered lanterns. The same truck that the guys from the other camp had driven over last night was there, with both doors open and pop music playing from the radio more loudly than Beth thought was probably a good idea considering the situation. 

When they get close, Cosima kisses Delphine on the cheek and bounces off to a guy with long brown hair leaning against the bed of the truck. Beth recognizes him from last night and watches as he grins at Cosima. He takes the blunt hanging loosely from his own lips and holds it out to her. 

Delphine glances at Beth, seemingly checking if she’ll be alright on her own, then walks over to a slim girl with red hair. Beth remembers watching her swim yesterday, and is starting to remember that her name is Emma without running through Cosima's descriptions. Beth sits down on the slope of the grass, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. It’s just dark enough and there’s just enough people for her to be not immediately noticeable.

She watches the rest of the teenagers, and it’s not that she doesn’t want to join them or anything, it’s just that she’s tired and doesn’t think she can stand interacting with a dozen or so people right now. Only a few of them even seem to realize she’s there. She thinks Cosima might be talking to the guy she’s with about her; her exuberant hand motions are fairly easy to read, even from as far away as Beth is. It looks like they might be getting ready to come over to her, but they stop when they see a girl walking purposefully towards Beth, two plastic cups in hand. 

Beth barely turns her head as Alison sits down next to her and hands her one of the cups. She sniffs the cup before she drinks, and is very grateful that this cup is over halfway filled with red wine. She drinks more than is probably socially acceptable in the wine community, taking definitely more than a few sips before she lowers the cup and thanks Alison. 

They sit quietly for a few minutes, watching the scene unfold in front of them. Beth likes watching people; they never cease to amaze her. 

It’s been almost half an hour and neither of them have said a single thing. They both drink from the plastic cups, and Beth pretends that she hasn’t drained as much of the wine as she has; a few more sips and she’ll be swallowing air. She sees a girl that she thinks is Sarah leave the group and, a few minutes later, another girl follows, her blonde hair reflecting the dim lantern light. 

“I think they’re sleeping together.” It’s the first thing Alison has said since she sat down and it almost makes Beth laugh. “Sarah and Rachel, I mean.” There’s a beat of silence where Beth realizes that what Cosima had told her was not necessarily established facts.

“So does Cosima.”

“Cosima is far more observant than people give her credit for.” Beth hadn’t even considered Cosima being anything but, although she recognizes that Cosima may be different around other people. Or, other people may think Cosima is different. 

“Yeah.” Beth is obviously super proud of her incredibly intelligent response. Alison doesn’t reply, but then again, there’s not much that could be done to carry on that conversation. They both bring their cups up to their lips, almost simultaneously. Beth can tell Alison still has at least a quarter of her cup filled, and she pretends that her cup isn’t now completely empty. 

“So why did you decide to come work here?” She can tell that Alison has turned to face her, but she stays in the same position she’s been in, eyes roaming the cluster of kids, because now is the time that she chooses her words carefully enough that she doesn’t lie and she doesn’t tell the truth. The things that fall into that category are few and far between, but they’re about the only thing that comes out of her mouth anymore.

“My parents thought it would good for me, and I thought it would be nice to get away from my home and hometown.” And that’s completely one hundred percent true, it’s just not completely one hundred percent of the truth. Alison nods for a good ten seconds and Beth thinks that, for Alison (for most people, really), getting to know someone means talking to them and asking the sort of questions they ask on surveys and forms and applications. And Beth respects that, it’s just, she’s never been great at talking, never been one for sharing feelings. See, Beth doesn’t ask questions; she watches and waits for the answers.

Alison’s fingers tap a steady beat against her bare knee, and Beth thinks that this is probably when she’s supposed to say something. She hasn’t talked to many people in the last few months, and the people she has talked to have been concerned adults, pseudo-sympathetic doctors, and a few classmates. None of that is good practice for the real world.

“You?” She realizes it may be a little late to ask without rephrasing the questions, but if it is, Alison either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

“I went to this camp when I was younger. So did Sarah and Cosima. And Emma was here for two years, only one with me, though. I like it here. It’s nice. It’s a routine. There’s only two summers I wasn’t here, and that’s only because I wasn’t allowed. I like it here. It sort of feels like home, you know?” Beth nods, even though she doesn’t. While she’s never completely understood what people mean when they say that something feels like home, she’s come to realize that it’s because nothing feels like home to her. Her house doesn’t feel like home. Her family doesn’t feel like home. She loves them, but she doesn’t understand how they manage to be both overprotective and incredibly distant at the same time. It makes her feel like they think something is wrong with her. (That they do think something is wrong with her is beside the point.) She doesn’t have enough friends, and more importantly close friends, for them to be feel like her home. She thinks that the place she feels most at home may be her bathroom, and it bothers her that the thought doesn’t bother her.

“So Beth. What kind of stuff do you like?” Alison asks this question like it’s important; like there are still things that Beth remembers how to like. She shrugs. She thinks Alison realizes that these kind of questions aren’t the kind of things that Beth goes out of her way to partake in. She thinks Alison realizes that these are the kind of questions Beth goes out of her way to avoid.

“I don’t know. Pretty lame stuff, probably.” She’s pretty sure Alison might actually be glaring at her. “I don’t know. I like soccer. And mysteries. Not really mystery books, cause those are only good if they’re written really well, like real life mysteries. Um. I like music, I guess, but probably just as much as other people do. Um, I like winter. I like watching people, I guess. Like not in a creepy way, just I think people are cool. I don’t know. Nothing exciting. You?” She doesn’t really like talking about herself, especially now that it’s all she’s done for the past few months. 

“That’s not lame stuff. And I like soccer, too. I played on my highschool team. I don’t think I’m going to play in college, but I might. I like theater, especially musical theater. I like baking and knitting and DYI projects, even though those are usually more expensive than just buying something. I think they’re fun. Really just anything that falls under the arts and crafts category I probably like. I like spring because I like the colors and I like rain. And the way everything sort of starts over. And I like my campers. They’re incredibly lovely and I love that I get to help them have a good summer.” Alison sounds like she’s smiling.

“I like my campers more than you like yours.” That seemed like a perfectly good thing to say at the time, but now she’s really questioning her decision. Because besides the fact that it’s probably not true, it is probably not going to help the conversation along.

“That’s impossible.” Alison sounds so sure of herself. 

“I- Yeah you’re probably right.” Beth’s shoulders slump a bit in semi-mock defeat. 

They stay there for at least another hour, alternating between medium talk and silence, Beth, at least, constantly watching the people in front of her, ignoring the way she can’t focus on any of them when she’s listening to Alison. If Sarah and Rachel return, it’s after Alison and Beth, as well as Delphine, Emma, and Aynsley leave.


	7. I Like the Time It Takes to Get Somewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Chapter title from Cough It Out by The Front Bottoms)
> 
> So like does this totally suck? And is anyone even reading it?

Beth still isn’t doing so great in the sleeping department, and after she wakes up for the third time in less than five hours, she decides that there’s no point in trying to go back to sleep. She gets out of bed, and while she wants to wear the same shorts she’s been wearing since she got here, she realizes that she is supposed to be an adult here. And adults change clothes.

She slips on a pair of charcoal colored linen shorts and a loose black v-neck. She pulls on a pair of socks and ties her shoes. She grabs her phone before she leaves her room so that she’ll have a way to keep time. She doesn’t leave through the main room; she doesn’t yet know how heavily any of the girls sleep.

It’s colder outside than she’s been used to. She’s been out here in the dark the past few nights, and she doesn’t know if it’s that she wasn’t alone or the illusion of warmth from the noise and the lights and the drinks, but it’s colder now than she’d expected. She tugs the ends of her sleeves over her hands and stands still for a moment.

The sky is still a dark blue, graying as the sun hits the clouds just above the horizon. These are the colors that Beth loves; the grays and blues and purples and blacks that remind Beth not of second chances, but of grudgingly given third chances, and eighth chances, and thirtieth chances. She doesn’t see any hope in the colors that come right before the sun rises, but she sees wary forgiveness and tired acceptance, and she likes that. Because she thinks that sometimes, a lot of times, people think they need hope when all they really need is an acknowledgment that they’re still there, that they’ve messed up, that everyone has messed up, and just because your mistakes are bigger than any progress you make, doesn’t mean the world will stop turning. She also thinks she might be the only one who thinks this way, and she can’t tell if she likes that or not.

She starts up the hill that separates the buildings from the playing fields and the lake, which is just visible through the trees from the top of the hill. The hill isn’t tall, and it isn’t steep, but it’s tall enough and steep enough that Beth doesn’t notice the person reclining on the faux plateau until she’s only a few yards away.

Beth stops in her tracks, not sure if she’s allowed to disturb the other girl, but before she can come to any sort of decision, she motions for Beth to come over. She’s not sure if she saw her coming up the hill, or if maybe she doesn’t know who it is at all, but Beth accepts the invitation all the same, sitting so that her right arm is a good six inches away from Sarah’s left.

“You’re Beth?” Beth nods, knowing that it wasn’t really a question so much as an acknowledgement that Sarah knew who she was. She looks at Sarah out of the corner of her eye. This is the closest she’s ever been to the other girl, and studying people is her thing. Sarah is wearing a blue and black hooded flannel over a black tank top and slightly lighter black ripped denim shorts. Her boots are sort of like Cosima’s, but, besides taller, they’re dirtier and more worn in. She’s got dark eye makeup on, even this early in the morning, and Beth is starting to assume that she just never takes it off.

“I prefer it when people stare at me outright.” Even though she knows she isn’t blushing, Beth is sure she looks some combination of embarrassed, ashamed, and sheepish. This is the longest sentence she’s ever really heard Sarah say, and she hadn’t before realized that Sarah’s accent wasn’t just British, there was something else. Beth likes accents, and she thinks it might be Irish, mostly British, but somewhat Irish.

Beth slips a black hair tie off her wrist and pulls her hair up into a (probably very messy) ponytail. She sits with her knees pulled up to her chest, arms holding them in place. They watch the sunrise, and Sarah offers her the thermos she’s been drinking out of. Beth takes a sip, and it takes her a minute to realize that she’s drinking what seems to be coffee and English breakfast tea and milk, and she likes it more than she’d assume she would. She takes another sip and hands it back to Sarah, who seems satisfied with Beth’s reaction.

“I brought a coffee maker to camp.” The way she tells it, it’s almost a joke, and Beth almost laughs.

“I wish I had brought mine. But my mother would probably have disowned me if I had. Or I mean-” Beth abruptly starts talking, realizing that she sounds stupid. She also realizes that it probably sounded more stupid to stop talking in the middle of a sentence.

“Yeah, I would kill someone if they took my coffee maker.” It’s so, so, SO obvious that Sarah’s only talking to make Beth feel better, but it works, a little, so Beth doesn’t mind.

Sarah doesn’t say anything for the next few minutes, and she doesn’t seem like she wants to. Beth likes the quiet, and thinks she might like Sarah more than she thought she would.

They stay there until an alarm on Sarah’s phone goes off. She tells Beth it’s 7:30 and that they should go back. Beth walks through the front door of the cabin this time, not really caring if it wakes the girls up; they have to be up in fifteen minutes anyway.

Beth sits with her cabin of girls at breakfast again, but this time she has to stop herself from joining the conversation Delphine and Alison are having between their tables. She’s lucky that none of the counselors seem to blatantly hate her so far, and she doesn’t want to push her luck.

Beth does not, and does not think she ever will, understand the rotation system for activities. She’s supposed to be doing archery this morning, though, and volleyball in the afternoon, which should be super fun, considering that she has never even held a bow and done everything possible to avoid volleyball for the last few years. (The fact that Alison will be there definitely does not have anything to do with her trepidation in her skills regarding today’s activities.)

She’s not totally sure how she got roped into giving Rachel, admittedly one of her smallest campers, a piggyback ride to the unnamed archery place. There’s targets lined up across from the bows, and since Alison, the more experienced counselor, is not yet here, all Beth can think of is keeping her campers away from the containers of arrows. She manages to convince them to gather around her while she tells them a story, and she’s more pleased than she’d probably admit when it seems like they’re interested. (The fact that she was basically reciting the screenplay for Legally Blonde is totally beside the point.)

It’s about ten minutes before Alison practically struts over, her gaggle of preteens struggling to keep up with her brisk pace. She apologizes for their tardiness (Alison’s words, not Beth’s), and launches into an out-of-breath story about how one of the girls had left something in the cabin and someone else had left something when they went back to get whatever the first girl left. Beth pretends that she understands what Alison is saying, if only to stop the girl from explaining for the entirety of the time they have left.

As it turns out, Alison sucks at archery, and Beth, well, doesn’t. She doesn’t really understand archery in the slightest, but it seems like her body does. It takes three tries for her to hit the target at all, but considering the closest she’s come to partaking in archery before is a mini lab in freshman physics involving a toy bow and rubber arrows, she thinks it’s not so bad. Besides, she hits the very center five out of the next ten times, and of the remaining five, four hits are in the circle surrounding that.

One of Alison’s campers, however, is actually super into archery. Like, ‘shoots arrows competitively’ into it. Beth and the girl, whose name is Maya, end up competing head to head, which apparently entails their respective cabins cheering loudly and Beth’s face maintaining a color even redder than Maya’s shirt. Maya shoots furtive glances at Beth while loading her bow, checking to see how quickly she’s moving. Beth shoots furtive glances at Alison, who’s cheering louder than any of the twelve year olds.

At one point, Alison starts jumping up and down, waving her arms and screaming encouragement at Maya. Beth thinks it is so adorable that she forgets about the bow in her hands. Alison’s loose white tank top flies up for the third time, and when she stops to hold it in place, Beth remembers where she is and what she’s doing and scrambles to make up for lost time. (If Beth’s face reddens even more, it’s only because she’s rushing. It has nothing to do with wanting to kiss Alison’s adorably flustered face.)

Maya wins. She hits her eleventh bullseye just after Beth hit her ninth. Maya’s entire cabin runs up to embrace the girl, and Maya is tall enough that Beth can see her awkwardly holding the bow as people wrap their arms around her. Beth’s cabin of girls are just young enough to think that Beth might actually be bummed about her devastating loss, and just old enough to nod along disbelievingly when Beth says that she could have won if she wanted to.

Beth eats only a piece of watermelon for lunch and tells herself it’s only because she doesn’t feel like chewing.

The beach volleyball court is about fifty yards from the actual beach of the lake, and since Beth seems like the only person who thinks that that’s weird, she decides not to say anything. After falling four times, Beth(‘s team) decides that it’s probably better for her to just sit out. Even though Alison is actually pretty great at volleyball, she joins Beth a few minutes later, with a “it would be unfair for my team to have more players” as what Beth would sooner classify as an excuse than an explanation.

Alison, Beth has noticed, seems to be seriously invested in her campers, which almost makes Beth feel bad (she doesn’t even know any of her girls’ last names), but since none of her campers seem to be complaining, she thinks it’s probably okay. Beth pretends she doesn’t think it’s the cutest thing when Alison gets more excited than the twelve year olds about her team winning the first game.

Beth thinks she can probably rely on Alison to be enthusiastic enough for the two of them, and lets herself think about how it already seems like she’s been here so long, and maybe that’s what Alison means when she says it feels like home. Maybe home is just what you miss when you’re away, and Beth feels like she might maybe actually sort of miss this when it ends. She’s got time, though, and maybe she’ll get lucky and come out of this with actual people who don’t hate her. The counselors have been so unbelievably nice to her so far, and if she can just keep them from discovering how fucked up and weird she is, maybe it will be okay.

“Hey Alison?” Beth wishes her voice didn’t sound so damn timid; she’s a fucking counselor, not one of the campers.

“You can call me Ali, most people do.” Beth’s not sure why it takes her by surprise. (She pretends not to realize it’s because Alison, Ali, has turned to face her and she’s definitely within kissing distance.)

“I- uh, okay. I was just wondering…” Alison is still looking at her. Beth clears her throat and somewhat continues. “Sorry. I was just wondering who those guys were that come over? Like just their names. I don’t know. It was probably sort of a dumb thing to ask anyway. Sorry.” She looks down at her feet, watching her toes squirm in the sand beneath them like she’s not controlling them.

“No? It wasn’t a dumb question?” Alison seems almost offended that Beth would think it was. Sometimes Beth forgets that most people don’t regret everything they say. She can tell that Alison is staring at her, but she doesn’t look up. There’s a few beats of silence, and Alison sighs softly before continuing.

“Usually it’s some combination of Felix, Tony, Cal, Scott, and Donnie. You’ve probably seen them all; you seem to like watching. Felix is the small guy with dark hair who wears more clothes than he probably should considering the weather. He’s Sarah’s foster brother and he’s loud.” Beth glances up at Alison to see the other girl’s eyes still fixed on her. She ducks her head again.

“Tony has long brown hair and smokes too much weed. He’s nice though. He’s…” Alison trails off like she’s considering what Beth will think of whatever she says next. “Anyway. Cal has a beard and looks sort of like a farmer, which I’m not saying he can’t pull off, but still. Scott is... Scott acts sort of like a nerdy freshman, and definitely has a thing for Cosima, which is hilarious, but he's nice, so it doesn’t matter, really. And Donnie’s my brother. He’s a total doof.” Beth smiles at her word choice, because honestly, she’s pretty sure even their campers have outgrown the word ‘doof.’

Beth doesn’t say anything else, and when Alison resumes her cheering about two minutes later, she lifts her head and continues to watch what can barely constitute as a game. Alison jumps to her feet as soon as it’s time to head to the dining hall for a snack. Beth barely has to do a thing as Alison herds the girls into an almost line and leads them to the building. Beth follows behind, and almost doesn’t mind when she’s asked to give another piggyback ride.

She knows that it’s stupid to feel bad about eating a granola bar, especially when she barely ate lunch, but she does. Not that bad, but the fact that she feels any emotions about eating a granola bar that aren’t about the taste or the fact that she’s not hungry anymore should be enough to bother her.

At the cabin, the girls lounge around the main room and chat, and Beth takes off her shoes and stands in front of the mirror. She changes into her bathing suit again, staring at her reflection the whole time. After putting her shirt back on, she climbs into the bed and burrows under the covers. She’s not even sure if she’s actually tired, or if it’s just that she is now able to take a nap that makes it so hard to keep her eyes open.

Beth doesn’t really understand how time moves the way it does. She doesn’t understand how some people hate the time between things; the time where the only thing to do is think. Because thinking is something Beth’s good at. It’s not always good for her, but she’s good at thinking. Her mind is the only thing she always has, and no matter how many times it turns on her, it will still be the only thing there. Beth likes thinking because she can pretend in the way she could when she was little; she can pretend that she’s not the way she is and things aren’t the way they are and it doesn’t feel like wasting time to her. The times between are for stories and dreams and music and waiting. And Beth has always been better at waiting for something to happen than doing it herself, no matter how little she’d like to admit it.

She slides a hand out from under her blankets and snatches for her phone, squinting at the light even in the far-from-darkness of the room. After the alarm is set, she drops the phone where it is, closes her eyes, and tries to think of something other than Alison.


	8. Pretending To Not Feel Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Chapter title from Vagabond by Misterwives)
> 
> Very minor spoilers for the movie Trainwreck (which is hilarious btw). I would say sorry it's been a while since I updated, but there's like a .7% chance anyway is actually reading this. So.

Beth wakes up seconds before her alarm, an uneasy feeling rolling through her in response to the anxiety-inducing dream she just had. She’s never told her parents or therapists about these; she feels so childish talking about bad dreams, but that’s what they are. They’re not nightmares, they just make her uncomfortable and upset. She slides open her phone to turn off the alarm, trying to forget dreams full of whispers and embarrassment.

She barely puts her shoes on; her and her cabin of girls have to be outside in less than ten minutes at the latest and she’s really not sure why she didn’t set her alarm for earlier, except that at least she had a longer nap. (She’s trying to ignore the fact that she feels groggy and disoriented because that is so not helping her point right now.) She doesn’t even know if any, yet alone all, of the girls are even close to being ready.

She trips into the other room (okay, so maybe she should have tied the damn shoes) and is more relieved than she thought she would be when she sees that all of the girls are waiting around in their bathing suits, towels draped around the majority of their shoulders. Beth tries to pretend she’s less surprised than she is.

Beth straightens her shoulders and shifts herself into a more in control stance before smiling and ushering the cabin out the door. Saying that Beth’s campers are more excited than her is an understatement. Beth’s like 812% sure she looks either like she just woke up from a months long hibernation, or like she hasn’t slept in days. She’s really not liking either look, and this is very unlikely to help with what the other counselors think of her. 

The sun is brighter than expected and she squints, instinctively grabbing for the sunglasses she left in the cabin. She moves her hand back to its resting position tucked between her opposite arm and stomach, accepting the fact that her eyes are going to look like crinkled wrinkled slits this afternoon, which will definitely do a lot to make her overall look of ‘sleepy emotionally stunted teen’ even better. Beth sighs rather loudly, accidentally drawing the attention of a few of the counselors who’d apparently been having a conversation a few feet away. 

Sarah barks out a loud laugh at Beth’s disheveled appearance before Delphine lightly elbows her arm. Beth knows that Sarah’s eyes are just as smug as her grin behind her dark sunglasses. Beth sorta can’t tell if Sarah’s just teasing, or actually thinks she looks dumb, and squeezes her arms closer to her body and focuses her eyes on the ground. Feet with toenails painted a few shades darker pink than the flip flops they’re in come into her field of vision, and Beth looks up, focusing in on Alison’s face. 

“Here!” She holds out a pair of round almost-cateye sunglasses with light pink frames. Beth doesn’t move for a second, and Alison continues. “I’ve got a viser on, so I don’t really need them. You look like you do. So here!” Alison does, in fact, have a light blue visor on, which again, Beth thinks probably should not look as good as it does. It matches the light turquoise Nike tempos she’s wearing perfectly, and Beth thinks it’s adorable how coordinated she is. She’s still wearing the same tank top as earlier, and it matches the white on the sides of her shorts, which match her visor. Her flip flops match the sunglasses she’s still holding out for Beth to take, and her toenails, which are perfectly a few shades darker, Beth knows match the ruffled bathing suit on under her clothes, and Beth thinks it’s adorable.

Beth realizes that by now it’s been close to thirty seconds, and quickly plucks the glasses from Alison’s hand with a mumbled thanks and a blush on her cheeks. Alison stays standing beside her, quiet, but radiating a sort of excitement. After a moment, Delphine and Sarah join the two of them. They’re still waiting for one more cabin, and less than two minutes later, Cosima and her girls come falling out of their cabin and onto the grass. Cosima counts her girls for what is no doubt at least the third time, grins at them, and jogs over to join Beth and the counselors around her.

Cosima isn’t even wearing a shirt over her bikini top, and Beth is honestly very impressed with her confidence. She’s super gorgeous, so she should be as confident as she is, but it still surprises Beth. Cosima slips her hand into the back pocket of Delphine’s light denim shorts. Beth is honestly still insanely jealous of Delphine. The white lace at the hem of her shorts sets off her tan legs wonderfully and Beth wishes she looked like that. She folds her arms back around herself and falls into pace with the other four girls, walking on the edge of the group beside Alison, the girl’s sunglasses covering Beth’s eyes.

Cosima trips over a tree root and out of one of her black flip flops, causing laughter from some of the (Beth thinks) eleven year olds behind them. Cosima turns around and sticks out her tongue, trying to pretend to look offended. She keeps her hand in Delphine’s after that; it seems like keeping it in her girlfriend’s pocket on this trail required more coordination than either of them had. 

Beth listens, but does not contribute, to the conversation on the way to the lake. She feels Alison’s eyes on her a few times, and sort of doesn’t mind. When they get to the lake, Cosima strips off her denim shorts and jumps in as soon as it’s allowed. Delphine laughs at her, pulling her short sleeved white v neck over her head. She slips her feet out of her own flip flops, which are unsurprisingly fancier than basically anyone else's with the light brown leather looking bottoms and white straps. After grinning at Beth, she follows the lead her girlfriend set and jumps into the water, limbs flailing. 

Alison is sitting in the same place she was yesterday, visor still on her head. Aynsley sits beside her again, the royal blue top of what Beth guesses is classified as a tankini contrasts her sort of pale skin and really pale hair and it makes for a very nice picture against the water. 

Beth’s still standing just in front of where the woods end and the big rock she’s on really begins, and she looks up when she notices someone beside her. It’s Sarah, hands on her hips and head cocked like she’s studying Beth. Sarah’s taken off the black t shirt she was wearing, and Beth can now see her dark purple bikini up close. It’s an insanely pretty color. It would be really nice for throw pillows, maybe, or a bedspread. 

“Are you gonna swim today?” Sarah asks after a good minute or two. Beth shrugs. 

“I’m not really super into swimming.” Beth’s not lying, just. She sort of is. Sarah nods, and while it’s very unlikely that she believes Beth, she drops it anyway, along with her black athletic shorts. Then she slips her all black super worn Converse off her feet and jumps off the rock fifteen plus feet above the surface, somehow entering the water with almost no splash. 

Beth looks away from the water, searching for somewhere to sit. There’s a rock a few feet away, almost even with the treeline, and she plops down on that, wincing slightly at the somehow unexpected solidity of the rock. She watches multiple scenes unfold in front of her, very similar to yesterday, and tries not to notice how her eyes keep flitting back to Alison. 

It really is too hot out for Beth to be wearing a long sleeve black shirt, and she pushes the sleeves up to her elbows, and even though it doesn’t help much, it feels nice. Even though there’s no one within ten feet of her, Beth turns her arms inward, hiding the insides against her stomach. While it’s slightly too warm for Beth’s comfort, she can totally admit that it is a very nice day, and if she for some strange reason decided to actually swim, she knows the water would be really nice.

Alison and Aynsley both get in the water, and both do it without getting their hair wet, which is honestly super amazing to Beth who often has a hard time washing her hands without splashing her entire body. She relaxes in the heat, dozing off more than once, only to startle awake when she starts to slide off the rock she’s on. 

At one point, one of her campers (on her way to jump off the rock) stops and asks Beth why she isn’t swimming. Beth tries not to panic, because after all, the girl is twelve years old and much more likely to believe her lies than Sarah. She tells her that she doesn’t really like swimming, and that it’s not something anyone in her family is big on. The girl seems moderately appalled, but still accepts the answer without suspicion. 

When it’s time to go, Beth stands up and wipes her hands on her shorts before attempting to count her campers. It takes a few minutes to find them all, but she eventually has them all accounted for. She waits for most people to pass her, and walks at the back of the group on the way back to the cabins. It’s probably less than a minute before Alison falls in beside her.

“So are you having fun?” Alison seems genuinely interested in the answer Beth has yet to give. 

“Like currently?” It seems like Alison is trying not to smile at what was probably a pretty stupid question.

“Just generally. Like now, obviously, but also like are you having a good time here at camp?” 

“Oh, I mean yeah it’s fun I guess. I mean it is, sorry, just like. I don’t know. I still don’t really know all of the counselors, which is fine since it’s only the third day, but just like, there’s still plenty of opportunities for people to hate me!” Beth tries to make the end of her stuttered speech sound light and jokey, but she’s pretty sure it did not work at all, and that Alison knows exactly how serious she is. 

“I doubt anyone is going to hate you. Besides, you can’t be worse than the counselor you replaced.” Alison succeeds in her joking tone to lighten the mood a bit, and Beth smiles (at the ground). 

“Uh yeah. I mean I guess. But yeah it’s fun. Sort of unorganized, though? Sorry, I just mean that like, the schedule’s really not strict and it seems a bit random but I guess that’s fun, too?” Beth barely refrains from wincing at her own words. 

“It is sort of unorganized,” Alison admits. “It really bothered me at first, but I got used to it after a year or two. Do you like your campers?”

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t really know them that well, which probably isn’t really good at all. I don’t know. But yeah they’re great. They’re all so young and…” Beth trails off, realizing that saying that they’re innocent might be sort of a giveaway to how she feels. “Anyway, yeah. They’re great. I’m not as good with them as you are, though.” Alison seems to glow with pride at this small compliment, and it makes Beth feel nice.

“I just love kids, so it’s totally no big deal.” They’re both quiet for a bit while they try to at least sort of catch up with the large group in front of them. “Why don’t you swim?” Alison asks after a bit, and Beth thinks it’s probably what she wanted to ask the whole time, but she also doesn’t really mind, because it’s Alison. 

“I just, uh. I just don’t really like swimming.” For some reason, it’s harder to lie to Alison than everyone else, and realizing this makes Beth’s breath catch in her throat. Alison opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but then closes it again.

“Okay, that’s cool! Swimming’s super fun, though.” The way Alison seems to have to take a moment to think to say this and the way her voice adopts the same overly cheery tone she sometimes uses with the campers makes Beth think that not only does Alison not believe her, but that she might suspect what’s really up. Her arms tighten around her stomach as if to stop the knots that her intestines seem to be tying themselves into. “I mean, whatever floats your boat, though! Or, car, I guess.” Alison’s lame attempt at a joke makes Beth smile. 

It takes most people close to the same amount of time to change, and the whole camp heads to the _dining_ hall in sort of a long string of people. Beth sees that even the campers, even this early in camp, have started to mingle during meals. The tables are more mixed, and Beth notices that her and Alison’s campers are sitting together at their two tables, a few girls that Beth recognizes as Aynsley’s at one of the tables, as well. 

Beth gets her food (a breadstick, some salad, raspberry lemonade, and none of the lasagna), and sits down at the edge of the table that’s supposed to be for her campers. A few minutes later, someone climbs onto the bench between her and one of Beth’s own girls. Alison smiles at her, but her eyes move to Beth’s plate and Beth realizes that the smile seems a little forced. She smiles back all the same, and bites into her breadstick.

She and Alison don’t talk much throughout the meal, but she really doesn’t mind. She can feel Alison watching her eat, and even though she really doesn’t want to eat all of the salad on her plate, she does. Alison’s worry seems to ease up as Beth eats.

After dinner, there’s another campfire, where Alison again sits with Beth. She hands Beth a s’more and quirks an eyebrow when Beth passes it along to Zoe, who’s sitting on her other side. Zoe thanks her, and Beth pretends that she hasn’t noticed that all three of the marshmallows Zoe’s attempted to roast so far have fallen into the flames. 

“I don’t really like marshmallows. Or melted chocolate.” Beth is more embarrassed by this admission than is reasonable, but Alison smiles, and passes her a graham cracker and half of a chocolate bar. Beth watches as Alison teases her campers, and as they tease her back as she gets melted marshmallow all over her fingers and face. Beth thinks it’s really cute, and even though she doesn’t like marshmallow, it’s hard to resist the urge to kiss it off her. 

When Beth and all her girls are back in their cabin, she notices that they seem to be talking about a movie that came out a few days ago that all of them really wanted to see. 

“What are you guys talking about?” Beth thinks that maybe she shouldn’t have asked when the room gets quiet, but when Sage speaks, Beth realizes it may just be because it’s not a movie they’re allowed to see.

“A movie.” Beth rolls her eyes playfully. Some of the girls almost laugh.

“Wow! Really? A movie?” She actually has two of the girls laughing at her obviously fake overexcitement. “Okay but what movie.” It’s not really a question the way her voice falls, and she’s not sure why the girls seem so nervous to tell her. It’s Rachel that speaks up this time.

“Trainwreck.” Beth sputters out a laugh, because she’d actually gone to see this movie with her dad the day after it came out and the day before she left for camp, and she now definitely understands why they didn’t want her to know what they were talking about. 

“Can you guys keep a secret?” The girls nod. “Okay, wait right here.” Beth hurries into her room and leans over the desk chair, turning on her computer as quickly as she can and typing into the search bar. 

“Okay so I can only find it with what are either Chinese or Japanese subtitles, but if everyone’s cool with that, then I think we have a movie to watch,” she announces, walking back into the room with her laptop balanced on her arms. All the girls nod and grin, and they situate themselves near Beth’s room, moving over the chairs and the table so that including Zoe’s bottom bunk, there were enough seats for all of them and somewhere to put the laptop.

Beth reaches over from her position in the middle of the bed between Zoe and Sage and turns up the volume on her computer, starting the movie and entering fullscreen mode. The sound and picture are slightly out of sync, but none of the girls seem to mind, and Beth remembers how much she liked watching this with her dad. She has to tell the girls to be quiet a few times when they’re laughing too loud, because she’s pretty sure she’s not supposed to be showing her twelve year old campers an R rated movie.

“Um, are you guys sure it’s okay for you guys to be watching this?” Beth asks them during the rather long and awkward sex scene. All of the girls assure her that it’s okay, but there are a few squeals of how gross it is when John Cena climaxes, (Beth doesn’t blame them, but then again...), and even more when he stands in the bathroom with a towel over his dick. 

There’s a knock on the door about forty-five minutes into the movie, and even though nothing inappropriate is happening on screen (Lebron James is just refusing to pay for the doctor’s meal), Beth scrambles to switch to a different tab, and when the door opens, her and all of the girls have more or less the same expression on their face, which more or less totally gives it away that they were doing something they shouldn’t be.

Alison walks through the door, takes one look at the group of girls surrounding the computer, and quirks an eyebrow, making eye contact with Beth. 

“Hey, Ali,” Beth says, sounding more nervous than she means to.

“Hi, Beth. What’re you all doing?” Alison asks the question like she’s not sure she wants to know the answer. 

“Oh you know, just watching a movie,” Beth laughs nervously. (She pretends she’s positive the nerves are from Alison finding out about the movie and not about Alison possible judging her for how she interacts with her campers.)

“What movie?” Alison’s adopted a playful tone, like she knows that Beth’s done something she shouldn’t have. There’s more than a few beats of silence.

“Trainwreck?” Alison’s eyes widen. 

“Like the one with Amy Schumer?" Beth nods. "Beth! You’re not supposed to show them that!” All of Beth’s campers shrink into themselves a bit, worried they’re about to get in huge trouble. Alison sighs overdramatically and crosses the room in a few purposeful strides. The girls all seem to be holding their breath, awaiting the explosion that they have no doubt is about to come.

“Move over.” Alison nudges Sage, who obliges, and squeezes in between her and Beth. Beth grins, locking eyes with Alison as she restarts the movie. Alison scoots even closer, until her body is flush against Beth’s.


End file.
